Canterbury and Westland. 317 



•south of the last-mentioned river it begins on the banks of the Kakahu 

 to assume larger proportions, covering on the banks of the Opihi, 

 Pareora, and Otaio, a large extent of country, and reposing generally 

 unconformably on the Oamaru formation. Between the lower course 

 of the "Waihao and Waitaki the low hills bounding the Waitaki plains 

 are also formed of Pareora beds of considerable thickness. The 

 principal outliers of this formation are found in the Broken Eiver 

 basin, and near Lake Heron, where they occur nearly 3,000 feet above 

 the sea-level. In Westland, from near the northern banks of the 

 Grey to the Hokitika river, the same formation is also extensively 

 developed, containing a great number of fossils, of which several have 

 hitherto only been found in that area. These western beds form 

 Captain Hutton's Kanieri group, and are considered by him to belong 

 to the lower portion of the Pareora formation. 



Sequence axd Chaeactle oe Hocks, astd Position of Steata. 



The principal beds of this formation consist mostly of bluish or 

 greenish argillaceous sands, with harder calcareous, mostly fossiliferous 

 beds inter stratified with them. One of the best and most extensive 

 sections is situated on the left, or southern banks of the "Waipara, 

 where the strata which immediately repose upon the Mount Brown 

 series consist mostly of arenaceous and argillaceous beds, clays, some- 

 times marly or loose marine sands. The clays often enclose concretions 

 of sandy limestones, and also harder beds of the same rock, im- 

 pregnated with lime and alternating many times with each other. 

 In them we meet at the foot of that mountain, and often in a perfect 

 state of preservation, with a great variety of fossils, as, for instance, 

 Voluta pacifica, JSTatica solida, Struthiolaria (several species), Lictraria 

 solida, Cytherii JEnysi, Dosinia (two species), Venericardia intermedia, 

 jPectunculus laticostatus, Lima crassa, and many others. These beds 

 are either of littoral origin or shallow water deposits. They are over, 

 laid by beds of conglomerate, mostly formed of small river shingle, 

 deposited in a shallow estuary, and consisting of the debris of 

 the palaeozoic ranges near the upper course of the Waipara ; but 

 the destruction of some of the older tertiary rocks has also fur- 

 nished material for their formation. These beds are together of 

 a thickness of about 300 feet. Some contain two species of 

 oysters, of which one is Ostrea JVelsoniana, which sometimes forms 



